Taking perhaps his last public shot at a system he accused of literally trying to kill him by seeking further sanctions on top of the professional death sentence already imposed.

"What is the purpose of coming after me right after I'm disbarred?" Eisenberg asked. "Because its one way of traumatizing me and pushing me into an early grave.

"When you know someone's suicidal why would you keep going after him, unless you want him to die? " he said. "Tell me to die and I'll do it. Order a lobotomy. I surrender."

Lawyers whose licenses are revoked can seek reinstatement after five years. But a referee who heard a grievance about Eisenberg's conduct in a suit over a dog's euthanasia, and fee splitting in another case, recommended another two years be added to that waiting period -- and that Eisenberg pay nearly $30,000 in costs.

Tuesday's court appearance was pure Eisenberg. In just the first 12 minutes of his argument, he detailed a litany of physical, financial and emotional ills -- (Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson invited him to present his argument from a chair after he complained of sciatica pain in right leg while standing) -- and compared himself to the subject of the case at issue.

"It appears today, I am the dog," he said.

His professional banishment came for a 2001 lawsuit in which the court found Eisenberg had filed in bad faith to intimidate, harass and maliciously injure his client’s estranged wife, and to gain leverage in the couple’s divorce.

Justice David Prosser asked Eisenberg, 71, the obvious question: If he truly has no desire to ever practice law again, and doesn't believe he could win reinstatement even he did, why did fight the latest case so vigorously?

Eisenberg said lawyer regulators would only accept a surrender of his license if he admitted to wrongdoing in nine other cases, something he called a Catch 22.

Justice Ann Bradley asked why the charges weren't folded into the case that resulted in Eisenberg's revocation, and if the current matter might not be seen as a "bit of overkill."

Paul Schwarzenbart, a Madison lawyer who prosecuted the case for the Office of Lawyer Regulation, said the costs rose because Eisenberg fought it "tooth and nail," and defended the OLR's prosecutorial discretion.

In rebuttal, Eisenberg scoffed at Schwarzenbart's explanation that he was only hired by OLR to bring the current case and couldn't answer the bigger why.

Correction: An earlier online version of this story incorrectly reported that Alan Eisenberg had filed a lawsuit, ultimately criticized by the state Supreme Court, against his ex-wife and her mother. The lawsuit was filed against the estranged wife of a client. Also, Eisenberg is 71, not 70.

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